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The Airframe

The current airframe used for our testing is a commercially available remote control plane, Yardstik, manufactured by Great Planes. The Yardstik is an electric powered park flyer plane which is suitable for a beginner to fly.

Specifications
The length of the aircraft is 0.91 meters and the wing span is 1.08 meters. The basic weight for RC flight is 350 grams and it has been tested with an addition of 200 grams of payload, giving it a MTOW of 550 grams. The flying endurance is about 5 to 10 minutes and has a flying speed of 7 to 11 m/s.  

Construction
The Yardstik is build up of wooded tail and wing sections. The wings are reinforced by carbon fibre rods in leading and trailing edges with a transparent film skin covering. The fuselage is made of a simple carbon rod and the wings are joined together with a dihedral angle of 22 degrees.

Control
The control of the airplane is done using 2 control surfaces, the elevator and rudder control surfaces located at the horizontal and vertical tail. The control surfaces are actuated using the Futaba S3108 micro servos.